(upbeat music) - Welcome friends to this episode of the "Everyday Educator" podcast. I'm your host, Lisa Bailey, and I'm excited to spend some time with you today as we encourage one another, learn together, and ponder the delights and challenges that make homeschooling the adventure of a lifetime. Whether you're just considering this homeschooling possibility or deep into the daily delight of family learning, I believe you'll enjoy thinking along with us.

But don't forget, although this online community is awesome, you'll find even closer support in a local CC community. So go to classicalconversations.com and find a community near you today. Well, listeners, I'm excited to say to you that it's almost time for community to start back. Actually, some of you who have challenged students may have begun community as early as this week.

But those of us with foundations and essential students still at home enjoying the last long days of summer are looking ahead to what's coming. And all of us, I don't know, even though my kids are grown and gone and they're not waiting for me every morning at the school table looking at me expectantly, at this time of the year, my heart still turns toward the lessons of homeschooling.

Now, not so much the lessons I'm getting ready to share as the lessons that I have learned. And I really believe that one of the biggest joys of my heart and my homeschooling journey has been sharing the lessons I've learned, oftentimes the hard way, with young moms and dads or people who are not as far along on the journey as I am now.

And I've got one of my best CC buddies who's also maybe farther along on the journey than you are with me today for this podcast. Kelly, I'm so happy to have you. - Oh, Lisa, I am so excited to talk to you about these things today, because when we first had the conversation about this podcast, I thought, wait, looking in the rear view mirror to see where I've come from, I didn't realize I was that far down the road.

But truly, we are, as a family, much closer to the end of our family's homeschool journey now than we were even just a couple of years ago. So I'm excited to talk about these things with you and with our listeners today, too. - Yeah, I think it is really encouraging.

One of the things that I found most encouraging while we were homeschooling is knowing that I wasn't alone. I wasn't alone in my joys, and that made the joys more joyous, and I wasn't alone in my struggles, and that made my struggles doable, livable. And so Kelly and I, Kelly Wilt is with me today.

She's one of our curriculum developers with CCMM. And we love to talk to and mentor younger moms and dads who are still on this journey. And so we really want to talk about lessons we've learned, lessons from the rear view mirror. I was telling Kelly just a little bit ago that I feel like I could be a great homeschool mom for my grandchildren, way better.

I could do a way better job with my little grandson, who's just two years old, than I probably did with my girls when they were two years old, because there was a lot of stuff I stressed over and a lot of stuff I had not learned myself. The Lord was still molding me.

I mean, He still is, but He was seriously molding me when my girls were two and four years old. And so I'm excited to talk to you, and I'm excited to just be real, raw, and honest with our listeners about what's been going on. I know, Kelly, that your homeschool is not all the way in the rear view mirror yet, but 2/3 of your journey is in the rear view mirror.

So let me ask you this. Do you feel like an experienced driver on the road of homeschooling? - At moments, yes, and at moments, no. I love thinking about the rear view mirror, because now that we're close to the end, it's good to reflect. But it's also good to think about the part that's left and how to redeem those last moments to finish well based on what you've experienced.

And you know, Lisa, I think the closer we get to the end, I, like you, think quite a bit about our earlier days when my children were young and what my thoughts were and what my hopes and my goals were for our family. And I just am so incredibly thankful for the experience that we've had, because as you've already alluded to, it was a refining time, continues to be a refining time for me, not only as a homeschooler, but as a parent, as a Christian, as a friend in so many roles in my life that I, at the beginning, had no idea would be so greatly affected by our homeschool experience.

- It is a great truth that when we start off on the homeschool journey, we are doing it to be a blessing to our children. And we begin the journey thinking it is all about giving our children the best start in life and the right view of education and the closest relationship they can have with the Father God.

And all of those things are true except for the all. It's not all about that. What you said is really true. Homeschooling is incredibly refining if we allow it to be for the parents. And I think lots of times I look back, and when I was a young mom, I thought I was the artist making something out of the clay that was my precious little girls.

And now I realize I was a tool in the hands of the Lord who was the artist making something out of the clay of my dear little girls. And so I'm grateful that He used me to teach them and to love them and to make mistakes in front of them that hopefully they won't make.

And a lot of mistakes that we learned from together. So we're gonna get to all of that. I want you, 'cause I feel like probably a lot of the moms and dads listening today are not as far along in the journey as we are. They are quite likely younger than both me and you, and you're greatly younger than me.

But I want you to look back and describe yourself as a young homeschool mom when you were just starting out, okay? I'm gonna give you parameters. I want three adjectives to describe you. And I want you to also tell us what your goals were. - Okay, so let's see.

In typical CC tradition, I will choose three adjectives that all begin with the letter C. - All right. - So let's see. I think my first adjective would be creative. - Right. - I wanted to do all the things and just be able to inspire my children. - Yes.

- To love learning. Because in a former life before homeschooling, I was a public school kindergarten teacher. And so in my mind, I just had this extensive library of all the things that children should be doing, which it was a blessing and a curse. And we'll talk probably about that a little bit more later.

But I think my second adjective would be committed. From the very beginning, I knew this was not going to be easy. I knew it wasn't. Now, did I have any idea the extent of difficulty? No, but I knew this was going to be a hard thing that we were choosing to do as a family.

I knew it would be difficult for us at that time to choose to be a one-income family for the benefit of our children so that I could be home with them and not in a classroom teaching other children at that moment, because that was what we felt called to do.

So we were, I was creative, I was committed, but Lisa, in all honesty, my last C adjective is clumsy. (both laughing) - Yay, honestly, come on. - Yes, you said you wanted the real, real, so here it is. - Yeah, absolutely. - You know, I just did not really have a good idea of what homeschooling would look like.

You know, I, at that point, you know, homeschoolers had a, you know, rap for being kind of weird. - Kind of weird, yes. My daughter used to describe it as, "Mm, they were painfully homeschooled." And I said, "That is really judgmental, "but I sort of understand what you mean." Yes.

- Yes, yes. I was clumsy. I didn't really know what to expect. I was trying to, in my mind, divorce what I knew of education in a classroom from what I was learning homeschooling to be in our home. And I didn't always do it well, Lisa, to be honest, but I learned a lot of lessons from thinking incorrectly, because the Lord used those mistakes to refine our family's vision for what we wanted homeschooling to be and what we also did not want it to be.

So there was blessing, even in that time of clumsiness and stumbling a little bit to try to find what would be the right rhythm for our family. So those are my three, my three adjectives. Creative, committed, but still clumsy. - Yes. What were your goals when you and Ken started out?

What were your goals? - Well, I'm not sure that all of our goals- - And say they might not be. Okay, that's the other thing. I was hoping that you would be really honest. The goals that I had when I first started out, I'm like sort of embarrassed to say them now, because the Lord refined me and I learned.

So I want to hear yours. So I'm not embarrassed by myself. - Oh, well, let us not be embarrassed together because my goals changed too. I think, you know, initially my goals were very prideful. My children will all be members of MENSA because they will be so well-educated. They will know all the things.

You know, my children will all be admitted to Harvard because they just will be so outstanding and they'll all read at two and a half years old and they'll do all the things. And you know, Lisa, I think unfortunately at that time, the goal that should have been primary was secondary or tertiary.

And that goal that became our later defining goal was we want to see our children walk rightly in this world, knowing they are a citizen of this world, but being prepared to be a citizen of the world that is to come. And I think that after those first clumsy steps, we started to realize that our mission field was in our home and that we needed to redeem this time that God had given to us to feed into our children, not only mentally, but spiritually and emotionally.

And the Lord used that refining of our goals to be able to refresh our vision for what homeschooling could be. But not to say that we didn't have academic goals. - Of course not. - We wanted our children to be able to have the skills to learn any subject.

That was something that was upfront, very tangible for us. Because we knew pretty quickly that within the course of 12 years, we were not going to be able to teach them everything. I laugh in looking in the rear view mirror at that goal. I could have kept them awake for 12 years and not taught them everything.

But we wanted to be able to have them acquire the skills that when they did graduate, no matter what path the Lord called them to in their lives, they would have the ability to adapt and to learn and to excel because they had skills to help them on that path.

And so that goal, even though others may have shifted through our course of homeschooling, that one was one that we kept upfront. What about you? Real, real, how did your goals change too? - On the real, real, I was a lot like you. I really, I wanted to homeschool my girls because, well, my older girl, my older daughter was a really precocious learner.

She read early and she knew a lot of things. She was just a curious little child and she asked a lot of questions and her daddy and I were both natural born teachers. And so we gave her a lot of information. So I decided, we decided to homeschool her because A, we thought she would be bored in regular school and B, we thought that her constant questions would be disruptive in regular school.

And we didn't want her little spirit squelched. She had never been punished for being curious and inquisitive and we didn't want that to start with school so that she began to hate learning. So my initial goals were to, like you said, raise really smart students who read early and could study anything they want and could be really smart and would be leaders.

And it didn't, I realized pretty quickly that that was not the most important thing. As she began to read quickly, she also developed some attitudes that were not as lovely. And so we realized that the Lord had given us a unique time with our girls to shape their character and to teach them how to love their neighbor first by loving their family, right?

And then loving their community and loving their church. And so our goals for homeschooling shifted as well. We still wanted them to be as bright as the Lord led them to be, but we also wanted them to be curious and loving and merciful and thoughtful and kind. And so while we did keep our eyes on the academic prize of learning and exploring and memorizing some things, we also really moved to developing their character, making them virtuous humans.

And so it was really, it was eye-opening. Like you have said, it was very eye-opening and God did a lot as He redeemed our hearts and our spirits and our understanding. There were lots of things that when I started homeschooling, I just knew, you know, and here's the really funny thing.

Stephanie was a really early reader and I would teach her things about phonics and she would get this kind of unfocused, far away look in her eye. Like I was reminding her of something she already knew. And then like the next day she's reading all these words that I never taught her.

And I thought, I am the best reading teacher ever. Oh my gosh, I am so amazing. And then, you know, as God does, He sends us our second child who is nothing like the first child and they don't learn in any of the same ways. And the far away look in my younger daughter's eyes was for a completely different reason.

And so she had strengths that it took me a while to discover because I was looking in the wrong place. And so one of the assumptions that I made was that all the progress that my children made were because I was such a good teacher. And then one of the assumptions that I made, one of the things that I knew was if you have a good way to teach reading or fill in the blank, to teach math or to be a good science person, that it would work the same with all the children.

That was also false, okay? So that was not a thing. What are some of the things that you just knew when you started out that you discovered were not true at all? - Oh, heavens. Well, the first thing I knew I've already, I knew in quotation marks was that all of my children would read really early because I read really early.

And if I was teaching them, then they would basically become clones of me. That was not true. - Okay. - And I also knew that my sweet, sweet little children would want to do their schoolwork every single day. - Oh, gosh. And that you would want to teach them every single day.

- Yes. And, you know, Lisa, I look back and I laugh because I had very grandiose ideas of what we could accomplish within the course of a day, because I completely did not factor in the fact that my children are children. - Oh, my gosh. And your house is your house, and things will break, and the power will go off, or somebody will be sick, or 10 people will come to the door.

Oh, my goodness. - Yes, yes. Another thing that I knew was that even though we were homeschooling and a greater portion of our day would be spent in those endeavors, my house was still going to run like clockwork, and it would be perfectly clean all of the time. And so I had ideas that, you know, at any time, if anyone dropped into our house, they would see us, you know, just sitting in a circle, basically singing, singing songs, and just joyful.

And I had two very energetic little boys and a sleeping baby. And let me tell you, I learned very quickly to prioritize well, because some days my husband would come home from work, and I would have a meal in the crock pot, and I would be smiling. And some days he would come home from work, and the house looked like, you know, a school just exploded.

- A crock pot came through it. - Yes. And there were books and crayons and all the Play-Doh, all the things all over the place. So we learned quickly to have a basically get out of jail free card that was the pizza card. So each week I would have one, you know, I would say, okay, it's pizza night.

And he would know that his responsibility was to give me a big hug, because it had been one of those days, and to get Papa John's or Pizza Hut on speed dial, so that we could eat supper and then send our children to bed with full tummies so that we could try again the next day.

And we learned very quickly that grace needed to be extended, not only to our children, but to ourselves, because we were learning this dance called homeschooling. And, you know, when we knew better than we did better, but there was a lot of learning along the way in order to know to be able to do.

So, you know, those are some of the things that I thought I knew. And it's interestingly, so like now, with where our family is in our journey, my two energetic little boys have graduated through challenge four. One of them has graduated from college as well. And my baby, who was sleeping peacefully in her crib, still sleeps through, I mean, basically a hurricane, because she became so accustomed to the noise levels.

But she just entered challenge two. And so, you know, I look at where we are now, our house is quiet. Our house is orderly. Supper is not difficult for me to make, but man, do I miss those busy days. - Yes. That's another thing. Stages of life are real.

And so I used to think once I got in a groove and got quote unquote good at the schedule and good at all the things I wanted to teach my kids and good at managing, that it would always run smoothly. But what I discovered is just when I got good at this one thing, it would change.

And then I felt like I was not good at it anymore. Or as the girls got older, the things that they were studying or texts that they were using to study kept changing. And I had to keep adapting to different ways of learning. And so that, and there were times, admittedly, you know, at the end of the day, I can remember, especially when they were younger in the Foundations and Essentials years, and when some of them were not old enough for the programs yet.

I can remember getting to the end of the day and thinking back and being so discouraged to think, okay, so what do we really do? I mean, did we even finish a math lesson? You know, can this child read one more word than they read? You know, I don't even think we said the Pledge of Allegiance or, you know, I never even, you know, I had this, we didn't memorize the poem today.

And there were times when I was so discouraged. And I will be really honest with you, Kelly, when I was writing Scribblers, that's where my heart yearned toward young families who would get to the end of the day and say, gosh, God can't, I don't even see how God can redeem that day.

And so what I want to say to young families who are jumping in and maybe have multiple children at home and all these delightful goals and all this amazing child energy, look, if you can get to the end of the day, and what we say in the Scribblers resources, if you get to the end of the day and you prayed together and you played together and you read together and you explored together and you served together, it has been a good day.

And there's so much more that we learn alongside our children than what comes out of a book that I think, if I look in the rear view mirror, I wish I had known that in a more deep seated heart way when my girls were little. We've both learned a lot of lessons.

And when I look back, I see all kinds of lessons. I want to get to a few specifics 'cause we could talk about this for a long time because we both feel it so keenly. And we're so eager to share it with families who are at an earlier section of the journey than we are.

Okay, what did you learn about your kids as littlest learners that would have made it easier back then? What has time and perspective taught you about the way little children learn? - I think looking back on that time period when we were so busy, those busy days where I felt like I needed to have hands and minds occupied unless they were sleeping.

I think that it would have been wonderful if I had been more mindful to be sensitive to their needs and to my relationship with them. Sometimes I allowed the bulldozer of the schedule to completely steamroll over my precious children's curiosity. They could have been building the most intricate Play-Doh snake or snowman or fill in the blank here and wanting to tell me with joy and enthusiasm all about it.

And I sadly remember times where I looked at my watch and said, "Well, it's 9.30. "We need to go ahead and put this away." - Right, we don't have time for that now. - Yes, and oh, Lisa, I wish if I had a time machine, I would go back in time and I would just hit pause on those plans for just a little bit longer so that my children could have delighted more in the act of play.

I think if I could, in the rear view mirror, I think I would have played with them more. Now, granted, we played a lot. - Right, but you know what? The play is, Einstein said that, play is the work of childhood. - Yes, yes, I think I would have made fun more of a priority.

Having fun with them, going outside, going for walks, kicking a ball, just doing things, having conversations with them, even when they were little, like, "Oh, do you see this? "Do you notice this?" I think we used the core habits, naming and attending and memorizing, expressing and storytelling. But oh, I wish I could go back with the knowledge and of the connections that I have now as a seasoned homeschooler.

And I wish that I could redeem those moments where I allowed schedule to be the tyrant of our days. I just really think that would have made a difference. And also, I think I would have taken them more places. I think when they were young, because they were so excited to see and do all the things, I shied away from taking them certain places because I was fearful that they would be disruptive.

And looking back, I wish that when they were younger, we had done more things like go to a museum and practice, how do we behave in this place? And granted, they did learn those lessons later on, but I think just for their own experience and our experience in a family, I would have taken advantage of more of those opportunities to go together and experience things when they were young and not hold off on all those things until they were a little bit older.

- Oh, what a good encouragement. I really, really love that. What did you learn about rhythms versus schedules? And what did you learn about interruptions and consistency? 'Cause I know that's a thing that lots of us struggle with when we're first starting homeschooling and when our children are young.

I also tended to be a very plan heavy person. And so I did, when you said, you would look at your watch and say, well, now it's time for so-and-so, I could, I mean, I so can relate to that. And I feel like I probably squelched some teachable moments or I didn't recognize them because I was on my way to the teachable moment that I had designed in my head.

And I didn't recognize the teachable moment that was appearing in front of me. - Right, right. I think thinking about rhythms and schedules, this is the pithy saying that I probably would, put in a phylactery on my forehead like the priests of ancient Israel, vigor trumps rigor. I really, I think that if I had invested in that life giving experience to them, instead of being held to the tyranny of the urgent, I think that it would have been a better educational experience for my children at that moment.

And I will say this, there will always be something to distract you from your purpose. Sometimes the thing that distracts you from your purpose is the schedule that you're trying to keep. And pretty early on, I remember printing out a schedule and keeping it on our refrigerator, right next to where we would do our little activities at the table.

And it would say something along the lines of, eight to 8.30 this, 8.30 to nine this, nine to 9.30 that. And I would list off these things as if learning had parameters. (laughs) And as if we could not do math, five minutes after what time the schedule said. And I think that the Lord pretty quickly taught me that I was thinking inside a box and homeschooling is definitely outside the box.

I didn't realize at that point that everything was interconnected because it's created by one God who has wisdom beyond what we can comprehend. All these things are connected because they echo at one another and they glorify Him. And I think at that moment when my children were small, if I had had that vision for our homeschool, I think it would have made an incredible difference in how we had "scheduled time".

And I think I would have emphasized just routines over schedules. I think it would have been kinder to my children to not forsake order altogether because God is a God of order. But also to understand that some days there might be ebb and flow to that based on where my children were with a particular activity or if they had questions or they wanted to read a certain book just one more time, that my answer could have been yes and that was okay.

And I think it took me a long time to learn how to bend and not break in regard to our schedule as a family. Like I said, there will always be things to distract you. And as a homeschooling, as a young homeschooling mom, when my friends found out that we were homeschooling, they thought that it was open season for us to go and do everything.

- Yes, absolutely. - I just really had to learn to give my best yes to my friends and to make wise decisions for our family and just be consistent with the decisions that were made. If we weren't going to the zoo with friends, then I needed to be kind enough to say, we can't do that today because we have this planned.

However, we can do this. Exactly, and to just navigate friendship a little differently because of our family's priorities for homeschooling. - Yeah, you know what, my favorite thing that you said, 'cause there were lots of things and so I have to pick one. I love routines over schedules 'cause I tend to be a very scheduled person.

And I will say this, children, especially young children need routines and they need because they need to know what to expect. It is easier, transitions are really, really hard for littlest learners. And so if they know what to expect, they have less trouble with the transitions. But it doesn't mean that you have to be a 910 to 950 person.

It might mean that they can expect that every morning starts with prayer and a Bible story. And before lunch, it ends with map time and memory work. So it may be, like Kelly said, a routine. We always do math before reading. We always do reading before geography. We always do geography before lunch.

We always have stories after lunch, that kind of routine. I think that's really, really wise. And consistency, if you begin to build that as a family habit, then when your children are in challenge, planning more of their day and learning to take more and more responsibility for their assignments and their learning, that consistency of effort is what will bring them results.

So that's really good. What did you learn about, okay, I know listeners that you have all done this. I know it's not just me and Kelly, okay. Kelly, what did you learn about comparisons to others? You know, comparing your homeschool to somebody else's homeschool or your child's memory prowess to somebody else's.

What did you learn about comparisons and how do you learn that and what has it meant to your children? Well, I've learned that comparison, while a very helpful tool in challenge, can also be a tool that doesn't sharpen, but it dulls. Because it can be, as we have said so often, a thief of joy.

Comparison to others can be an encouragement, but it can also steal your joy. Because when you look at others and what they're doing, quite often, unfortunately, because of social media, we're looking at someone else's highlight reel and thinking, wow, their life is like fantastic every single day. And I bet their kids never complain about having to do math and look at their homeschool area.

It's so neat and tidy. And we fill in all of these supposed inadequacies that we have based on what we see that others have. And we don't see their struggles. We don't hear the questions that they're asking themselves or what their children are saying, as they're comparing their homeschool to others.

And I learned quickly that I could not motivate my children by saying, why don't you fill in the blank here, like your friend, so and so. That was, I think that came out of my mouth one time before I listened to myself and thought, I wouldn't wanna be motivated that way as an adult.

- Well, and you know what, Kelly? We don't wanna teach our children to do that. We don't wanna model that for your children. Do you really want your children to go through life comparing themselves either favorably or unfavorably to other people? You're either gonna raise a prideful child or somebody with real self-esteem issues who's not taking their worth from what the Lord Jesus thinks about them.

- Yes, exactly. And so pretty early on, we made it a priority to celebrate what we saw in others. If a friend tested or proved rather for memory master and was able to be a memory master for a particular cycle, if one of my children chose not to do that, rather than saying, well, why didn't you do that?

What's wrong with you? We would say, aren't you excited for your friend? What a fantastic accomplishment. And I would help them to reason through so that there was not an element of jealousy in the comparison, but there was true joy at what others in our community were doing. And I think this spilled over into challenge when my children were participating in mock trial and they were involved in debate, just helping them to look at their friends, to look at others in our community and see how they modeled Christ or to see those attributes of them, which glorified God and to celebrate those things and to tell that person, I see the way that you do this thing and how you are like Jesus in the way you do this thing.

And that makes me joyful. And to give that compliment is so much more wonderful than your child saying, well, you know, congratulations on memory master, congratulations on mock trial or whatever accomplishment that that person had achieved to show them how they were being like Christ is a much more noble goal.

And so I think that was how we took comparison instead of making it a thief. Instead, we decided to make it a giver so that our children could give to those people around them that they saw who were doing good things in the name of Jesus. - That is so wise.

You are really right. Comparison does rob us of our joy. And when we, in our day, and it's so easy to get sucked into it down in the weeds and the details, we compare child two to child one. And well, I don't understand why you're not reading yet. Or I don't understand why we're not ready to move to the yellow series yet.

You know, your sister did, or your brother did, or I, you know, your handwriting is so much less refined than your siblings, you know, or, well, so-and-so never made a mess like that, or, you know, so-and-so did their report or got their experiment done on time. And so it robs us of the joy that is learning together because it makes the presentation or the final product the only thing that we measure instead of valuing the conversations that we have along the way, the discoveries that we make together, the just sitting in wonder of it all as a family.

Those are the things, I'm here to tell you, those are the things that your children are going to look back and remember. They are not gonna remember how fast they finished the math lesson. They're not gonna remember how many weeks it took them to see the difference between there, there, and there.

You know, they're not gonna remember those details, but they are gonna remember if mama was willing to get her hands dirty in the creek and stuff like that. So those are the kinds of things. What I want to ask you is we're not gonna, okay, listeners, we're not gonna have time to get into all the specifics.

So I might have Kelly back and we might talk about what we learned about teaching math to our children. 'Cause some of you are thinking this is all so encouraging. Oh, I'm so glad, but how am I supposed to teach math to three children? Or how do you teach somebody to write a keyword outline while this person is sounding out B-A-T?

We'll do that, a different podcast. But these are big picture things because I'm telling you the big picture attitudes affect your little day-to-day decisions and the success that you're gonna feel. So this is the next question I want to ask you. What did you learn, Ms. Kelly Wilt, about your own learning style and your response to learning new things?

And how am I learning that about that earlier? Have blessed your homeschool. - Oh my goodness. Well, my own learning style is visual, very visual. I am still the person that goes to Office Depot or Staples and buys all the colors of highlighters and all the sticky notes and all the school supplies in particular colors.

And I would put particular subjects in particular color-coded notebooks. Oh, Lisa, that just made my heart sing. And so I would do these things for myself and I naturally thought if I was a visual learner, then of course all of my children would be too, ha ha ha. And so my firstborn was, so very much like you described with Stephanie, your firstborn, you thought, oh, I'm the best reading teacher ever.

And I thought because I was teaching in a way that echoed with my child's heart song, you know, my firstborn, I thought I am the best homeschool teacher there ever will be until my secondborn came along. And so he is not a visual learner. He is hands-on, we would call him kinesthetic.

He wants to manage and model and take things apart and put them back together, very hands-on. And it is a wonderful way that God has created his brain because I will say this, when we have furniture delivered, he can put it together without looking at the directions. - Oh my gosh, I have one daughter that is the putter together.

She and her daddy put the stuff together and me and my other daughter just like, yep, we see you doing it. I don't know how you got there from what you had to work with, but go for it. - Exactly, he was a square peg and I was trying to fit him in a round hole.

Now my thirdborn is also a visual learner. So now that she's the remaining student in our homeschool, we delight in going and buying all the school supplies so that we can revel in our post-it and highlighter glory together. But I think, looking back, I wish that I had been more sensitive to the fact that not all of my children were going to learn in the same way that I did.

And I think I would have very early on given our middle child more manipulative opportunities. And I don't mean that like in a manipulative in a negative way. - Right, right, right. - That I would have given him things to do with his hands while we were chanting memory work.

And we would have reviewed different pieces of curriculum or information while he was jumping outside or he was building with Legos or he was playing with, we had fabulous sets of Playmobil guys that were Romans. And if I had integrated those things more into learning opportunities for him and been sensitive to the fact that that was what his brain latched on to, I think it would have made his education easier at the beginning.

Now later, we did do some of those things because I started to realize after his younger sister came along, "Whoa, wait a minute, this isn't just a him thing. Everyone's different." And I think it would have helped tremendously because he just was a sponge. But I was trying to get him to soak up information in the wrong way.

So when we latched on to that, that completely revolutionized school for him. And he enjoyed it, he didn't, I think we got to a place where he would come and he would sit and he would do the things, but there wasn't joy for him. And when we started to include activities that, like I said, just plucked the strings of his heart song, he really began to enjoy what we were doing together as a family.

And that was a blessing to me as his mom, to see him loving the very active learning, not feeling like it was drudgery, it was a joy. And that gave me joy. - What a great thing. What a great thing to learn so that you can, parents, if your child just seems to "hate school" or not like learning, it's so easy to get discouraged and to feel badly about yourself or have dark feelings about your child's willingness to learn things.

But really maybe it's what Kelly was describing. You haven't found your child's learning style yet. You've not connected with the way that they need to and want to take in information. So don't be discouraged and don't decide that learning is not for that child or homeschooling is not for your family.

You just haven't learned all the things yet and you are going to continue to grow as a lead learner, just like your child is gonna continue to grow as an at-home learner. Well, Kelly, I'm thinking that you're not gonna be shocked when I tell you that we're really out of time because we've had so much fun talking together.

But as we bring it all to a close, I wanna ask, what are your three biggest rear view mirror takeaways? There's so many good things to think about. I think the first is something that you've already alluded to, and that is do not isolate yourself. Homeschool is meant to be done with a friend, so surround yourself with your people and delight in doing this together.

I think that would be my first takeaway. I think the second would be don't give up just because it's hard. I tell people all the time, homeschooling is the best, hardest thing that our family has ever done together. And that is still true after 17 years together, homeschooling as a family.

- And I will say this, there are hard seasons and you may hit a hard, maybe all your children will hit the hard season in the same year or in the same level, but maybe not. And so don't give up just because you have hit a hard patch. There is so much fruit and so much joy and so much redemption to be had on the other side of hard.

- For sure. I think the last takeaway that I would give is to trust that the Holy Spirit is at work in your life and in the life of your family, because you are always going to question, am I enough for this task? And really and truly the answer to that is no.

In isolation by yourself, you're not enough, but He is enough. And He will give you the strength to accomplish what He has called you to do. So trust in Him and enjoy reaping the rewards when someday you too are able to look in the rear view mirror. - Yes.

- Just like Lisa and myself. - Yes, I was gonna say, would you do it all again? But I know the answer to that. - Yes, yes. - I would too. And parents, that is, for parents who are just starting out or all your children are young, they're like all in foundations and essentials or diapers.

You will have days when you will think, I do not think I can do this for 15 or 18 or 20 years. This is not going to be, I'm not gonna look back on this as joy. I think you will. - Yes. - There's hardly a week that goes by that I don't look at my husband and say, I sort of wish they were little again.

I would do all of that again because it brought me great joy. And I think that I look back now and think, oh, I wish I could fix that little messy spot. I wish I could erase and draw that. I wish I could have a do-over for that year or for that instance.

But we can't. - Right, right. - But the Lord will redeem it. And the Lord does redeem it. And I loved what you said. It is a joy. And it will be the hardest job you'll ever love. - Yes, absolutely, absolutely. When I look back over our years, I think the one thing that resonates with me is that we have been changed through our experience homeschooling, but we've been changed for our good and we've been changed for God's glory.

And what more could you ask from your family's homeschooling journey? - Amen and amen, my friend. Well, listeners, I hope that you have gotten some encouraging encouragement and some inspiration from the things that we've shared today. I want you to know that Kellie and I are praying for you.

We pray for young homeschooling families that you will have reassurance and encouragement and peace and joy for the journey and fun with your family. I have one thing I want to, one thing that we sort of talked about, part of the fun of homeschooling is doing things together. One of the most fun things that our family did when our children were small and that we still do now that our girls are grown and are married even, is read aloud as a family.

Books have always been really important to us. And so I want to mention to you guys the Copper Lodge Library. If you are looking to build a library for your family at the very beginning of your educational journey, or maybe you're just looking for books to read aloud together, the Copper Lodge Library collection has lots of good material to start with.

And one of our newest titles is a book that actually our Challenge A students read, but it is a perfect book to read together as a family. It's called The Secret Garden. The Secret Garden is a delightful story of redemption and reclamation and hope, but your kids will just see it as a really fun story about children who bring a neglected secret garden back to life.

So go look and learn more about the Copper Lodge Library at copperlodgelibrary.com. It's collections of stories and beautiful bindings. It's a beautiful series of books, and you can build family culture of reading and family culture of learning by reading these stories together. So you guys go and enjoy some time with your family as the days of summer wane, and you begin thinking about learning intentionally together.

Kelly, thanks for being with me. Absolutely, anytime. All right, bye guys. (upbeat music) you you